


Carrion and Mercy

by damselfly (honeyheffron)



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Blue-Purple Hawke (Dragon Age), Canon-Typical Violence, Everyone Needs A Hug, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Rogue Hawke (Dragon Age), Scars, but pre-fenhanders folks, established fenhawke, fenris has a Thing for scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:27:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25870558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeyheffron/pseuds/damselfly
Summary: With his own history broadcast by the lyrium upon his skin, Fenris seeks to understand his companions through their scars.
Relationships: Anders/Fenris (Dragon Age), Anders/Fenris/Male Hawke, Anders/Male Hawke, Fenris/Male Hawke
Comments: 16
Kudos: 101





	Carrion and Mercy

**Author's Note:**

> Title lifted from Joni Mitchell's "Furry Sings The Blues."

Flesh and bone, as Fenris understands, speak endlessly of stories. His own body tells of a history he has yet to leave behind—pale paths of lyrium mark and mar every corner, curve, and edge of him, and in their expanse lie memories of a life he remembers only for the agony it wrought. As it is, he can hide nothing. His suffering is in the very marrow of his bones, painted upon skin he has only just begun to feel truly belongs to him.

He supposes this lonely feeling of discomfiture may very well be why he finds himself seeking it in others. He feeds an idle fascination, as he looks among his companions, wondering at the tangible vulnerabilities they are unable to hide. None of them are ever so severe as Fenris’s markings (and gratefully so), but their stories interest him all the same.

Carver, oddly, is the first. Hawke’s brother is frequently insufferable, but he offers a low and measured, “What is it?” as he becomes aware of Fenris’s gaze at the small, threadlike cicatrix just above his brow.

“Your scar,” Fenris says, “I have never noticed it before.”

Carver blinks. “Oh, that? Had it forever. It was Garrett’s fault, actually. We were just boys, and he was chasing me ‘round the farm. Course, he always played too rough, and once he caught up with me, he shoved me into the fence. I’d smacked my head pretty good, and next thing I knew, I was bleeding everywhere.”

“I did not _shove_ you,” Hawke cuts in, “You _fell_.” There’s an impish curve at the corner of his mouth that quickly contradicts innocence.

“You would say that.” Carver rolls his eyes, and then turns to explain to Fenris, “Nobody believed me when I said it was his fault, except for Bethany.”

Hawke at least has the decency to look guilty at that. “Yeah. Sorry, Carver.”

“You’re about fifteen years late,” Carver scowls, “But thanks.”

When Hawke returns from the Deep Roads weeks later, grieved and alone, Fenris catches him tracing the skin above the arch of his own brow—mirroring the very same place Carver’s scar was. His fingers move with a woeful purpose, as if the hopeless act may somehow defy all else to bring himself and his brother together once more.

Then, it’s the two jagged pink stripes across the backs of Aveline’s forearms. Pressed together, they coalesce into one long, concurrent gash, as if rendered by the same cutlass. With a bitter look in her eye, she won’t elaborate beyond, “Pride makes men foolish.”

After that is a short, thick gathering of raised flesh along Isabela’s thigh. As the usual clamor of The Hanged Man rises around them, she shrugs and says, “Knife wound, from a bad deal years ago.” 

She seems to read or understand something in Fenris, then, as she studies him, and murmurs playfully, “You can touch it, if you’d like. Don’t be shy.”

He does so, brows furrowed. The skin is uneven beneath his fingertips, and warm, as if the steel of the offending weapon still burns and buzzes inside. Danarius had cut him many times before, but those had merely been surface wounds. Isabela’s looks as though the blade had been buried deep and twisted.

Fenris frowns, withdrawing his hand, “This must have caused you a great deal of pain.”

Isabela hums quietly, “Ugly thing, isn’t it?”

“No. I think it’s very beautiful.”

Her amber eyes glimmer. “You’re sweet, Fenris.”

“How about mine?” Varric slides two pints across the table, his wicked grin in place, “Have I got beautiful scars too?”

As Fenris’s hand wraps around one of the tankards, the corner of his mouth upturns good-naturedly. “You could, if you wished to share their tales with us. The one across your nose, perhaps?”

The small notch appears to be an old one, nearly indiscernible, but it’s always drawn Fenris’s curiosity. Varric laughs, “Well, now, I have to keep some stories to myself, don’t I? Ruins the mystery, otherwise.”

Isabela cocks a brow, “Not like you to withhold a good story, Varric.”

Fenris nods, “Mystery is often reserved for evasion.”

“Noticed that, did you?” Varric shakes his head, “Another day, another time, Broody. I’ll need far more ale in me for that.” Respectfully, Fenris lets it lie.

And there is Hawke, of course, most of his scars small and well-nigh countless. Fenris is still working to discover them all. Hawke is generous with him, as he is in so many things, always willing to offer up a tale or two. Like Carver’s, many are the consequences of childhood mischief—some, however, lead with origins far less amusing. A curved lesion across his forearm for an incident back in Ferelden, where he’d tried to separate drunken friends in a knife fight; a pale, blotchy burn patch across his calf, where a young Bethany had accidentally struck him with incendiary magic; a rounded, scarlet spot near his collarbone, where he’d taken an arrow from a disgruntled neighbor in the night, for “trespassing.”

“He’d claimed it was an accident. He’d only meant to scare me, not shoot me proper,” Hawke explains, with an odd laugh, bathed in the moon and firelight of his bedchamber, “He was a nasty old bastard and he’d never been fond of me, so we didn’t quite believe him. Did keep me off his property after that, though, so I suppose he got what he wanted.”

“Why had you been there to begin with?” Fenris asks, ghosting his thumb over the mark.

Hawke is quiet, “I used to steal fruit off his trees, in the months after Father died. It was all very noble, really,” he snorts, “I took on a lot of his responsibilities after he passed. We had no coin, rarely had food, so I’d steal it where I could. Didn’t matter, though. I’d imagine all that old man saw was a scruffy peasant lad from Lothering taking what wasn’t his.”

Fenris kisses it, a tender press of lips Hawke sighs contentedly at. “You realize many of your scars are born of your sympathetic nature?”

“Are you saying I care too much?”

“I am saying your inability to turn away from the suffering of others leaves you with little regard for your own wellbeing, yes.”

“Just wait,” Hawke grins, “I happen to love you, so there’ll be many more in your honor, I’m afraid. Comes with the territory.”

Fenris grimaces, his gut seizing at the thought. “I’d rather you not embrace physical mementos of my debts to you.”

“There aren’t any debts, Fenris,” Hawke looks at him seriously, “You owe me nothing.”

“I owe you much,” Fenris insists, “Perhaps everything.”

Hawke kisses him, then, flushed and sincere, the way he always manages when he cannot find the proper words to express his thoughts. Fenris sinks into it, indulgently, gladly—Hawke has always been a man of action, and Fenris cannot begrudge him that. 

“You certainly know how to make a man feel special,” Hawke murmurs against him, “I’ll say that much.”

“Is being Champion not enough to make you feel as such?” Fenris is curious.

“Champion is a title,” Hawke waves a hand, “A lovely title, but a title, nonetheless. You’re far more substantial. I care much more about what you think of me than any other sorry soul in Kirkwall.”

Fenris smiles, a careful, soft thing, and lets the warmth he has come to know in these moments with Hawke bloom full and free in his chest.

There are the mages, as well. Fenris does not welcome their company, but they are not excluded from his observations. 

As far as he can tell, Merrill appears not to have any visible scars. The closest are her _vallaslin_ , but Fenris knows they were a voluntary undertaking, a Dalish custom he has little interest in knowing more of. He assumes, initially, that she must have some, for as often as she takes a blade to her skin for the iniquitous purposes of blood magic. But, as quickly as she opens a vein, she’ll seal it with a sweep of her blue-lit, sorcerous hand, the aftermath of which leaves no trace of injury. It is for this reason Fenris assumes Anders, a walking abomination, will be much the same.

That is, until Fenris gets a proper look at his hands.

It isn’t by design; he doesn’t favor Anders’s presence, much less his proximity. It is a day when they are quickly overwhelmed by a throng of bandits on the Wounded Coast, dismally outnumbered, fighting only with breath and steel and blood. One assailant catches the meat of Fenris’s thigh with his mace, swings and _pulls_ , effortlessly ravaging and ripping through skin and bone, as though it were fine linens. His ghastly cry is lost in the cacophony of combat all around, and he cannot manage his balance more than a moment after they’ve finally cleared the area.

Fenris hears Hawke shout as he falls, a half-hysterical wail wrapped around the syllables of his name. Anders gets to him first, however, hurrying to reposition him onto his back, muttering a nonsensical, “Hold still.” Fenris scoffs, steadying the pace of his breath, and returns, “As if I could manage anything else.”

“What’s happened?” Hawke kneels quickly beside them.

“Just a flesh wound,” Anders offers, prodding carefully at Fenris’s mangled, blood-sticky leg, “Nasty, but it won’t kill him.”

Fenris feels his muscles tighten at the contact, fixing Anders with a wary eye, habitually mistrustful.

“You need to relax,” Anders says curtly, “Tensing up only makes my job harder.”

“Demanding I relax isn’t very relaxing, mage,” Fenris spits back.

Anders huffs, “Hawke, deal with him.”

Fenris snarls, “I am not a dog to be disciplined.”

“No, but you are injured,” Hawke murmurs, pragmatic and placating. He places a cool hand on Fenris’s forehead, grounding him, smoothing back sweaty strands of starry white hair. “He’s trying to help. He’ll move quickly, I’m sure.”

He feels Anders poke at the wound again, gritting his teeth as the mage presses upon spots that ache and sting most. He makes no sound, a reflex Danarius had long ago cultivated—to admit or succumb to any measure of pain was an unspeakable act of weakness, and Fenris was never permitted to be weak.

Anders sighs, “I’ll need to get the fabric out of the way. Hawke, do you have—?”

Already moving, Hawke pulls a thin dagger from his belt and dutifully hands it off. As Anders begins to cut away at the patch of material over the damage, Fenris digs his hands into the earth beside him, wrestling lines of thought and memory that unhelpfully remind him of the last time a mage came near him with something sharp. Hawke senses the unrest in him—he begins to move his thumb back and forth over Fenris’s forehead, a soothing ministration. Fenris cannot help feeling coddled, but allows it. He takes no pleasure in being difficult.

The strip of his trousers comes away wetly, sticking and tearing at irritated skin. Anders returns the dagger to Hawke before arranging his hands just inches above the wound.

“This will take a moment, since it’s large and runs deep. Just don’t thrash or twitch and you’ll be fine.”

“Comforting.”

“You know me—soft and cuddly. Like you.”

Fenris glowers.

Anders sets to work. Fenris inhales sharply as he studies the unearthly light erupting from his fingertips, infiltrating and advancing through the open lacerations. It’s an odd sensation, as pale palms move over him, like a rush of cool water, a sharp tingling he can compare to nothing else he knows of.

This is when he looks at the mage’s hands. _Really_ looks at them.

Freckles dust each finger and knuckle like fine grains of cocoa powder—perhaps they’d once adorned his face as a child, too. But it is the angle at which a few of Anders’s fingers seem to naturally sit that pulls at Fenris’s attention. From each knuckle upward, certain bones appear to have set at abnormal angles, crooked or bent even as Anders stretches and flexes his hands over Fenris’s maimed leg. He studies the oddities closely, as the pain begins to dull, as skin begins to mend.

“Stare any harder and my hands may burst into flames,” Anders snaps dryly, following the path of his eye. He scowls, then, “Though I suppose you’d like that.”

Hawke sighs between them. Fenris offers meaningfully, “I do not wish torment upon you,” he tilts his chin toward Anders’s gliding hands, “Regardless, it seems you have already endured such treatment, in one form or another.”

Anders freezes entirely, brows drawn in his usual heavy, soul-bearing fashion. He looks down at the sinuous lines of his fingers. “It’s not a pleasant story.”

“I suspect not,” Fenris says. Even Hawke is looking at him, in his own tender way, soft on Anders the same way he’s soft on every other stray he pulls into his circle of companions. Unfailingly trusting, and always willing to listen. It will hurt him one day, Fenris knows, but it is a quality in Hawke he admires even so.

“You’re not obligated to tell us, if it’s difficult,” Hawke tells him, earnestly.

“I know that.” Anders seems to finish his ritual, then. The pain has lessened considerably, Fenris notes, and the flesh is left merely distressed, reddened only slightly to indicate there was ever an injury present at all. It is not the end of it, as certain muscles beneath the skin will still need to mend themselves. A mage can only do so much. Fenris has heard Anders explain this to his other patients often enough. “Done,” he says, without pageantry, tucking an unruly strand of strawberry blonde behind his ear. Fenris’s blood coats his hands.

Fenris sits up, with Hawke’s helpful grasp, exceedingly sore but fortunately whole. Before he can offer a word of quiet gratitude, reluctant confessions come tumbling forth from Anders’s mouth.

“They broke my hands. The Circle. After one of my last escapes. It was right after they transferred Karl to Kirkwall, and I was angry, and they knew I wouldn’t let them keep me for much longer. They used a blacksmith’s rounding hammer and broke my hands. That way, I couldn’t use magic to get out again, or to mend my own bones.”

The coast is silent.

“All because I wished for the freedom to see my friend, whom they’d taken from me. To see anything outside of the Circle walls. I dared to fight for my right to life, and they shattered my body for it.” He laughs, a hoarse, acidic sound, “They didn’t even bother to wrap them correctly. That’s why they’ve healed over this way. They made sure I’d never forget what they could do, every time I looked at them.”

Anders shifts uncomfortably in the stillness that follows. It is Hawke that whispers, “That’s horrible,” his frown set hard, seemingly winded by the weight of the tale. Fenris feels his tension at the small of his back, where Hawke’s hand rests to hold him upright.

Anders looks pointedly at Fenris. “Still convinced the Circle is the best place for all mages?”

“Yes,” he says. A familiar fire rises in Anders’s eyes, all righteous fury and bottomless indignation, but Fenris moves to stifle it before it can spread. “But I will not argue their methods are always just.”

Anders stumbles, if only for a moment. His response lacks its usual heat. Sadder, somehow, and quieter, as if soft-pedalled merely by an admission of understanding. “They are _never_ just. That’s the problem.”

Hawke reaches over to place a hand on his shoulder. It is not a gesture of pity, as that has never been his way—rather, one of steady comfort. Fenris is struck suddenly by the scene, gathered as they are; Hawke’s hands on each of them, bridging the space, drawing three imperfect points together. There is something to be said of the shape they make.

Anders’s eyes briefly invoke in Fenris the thought of an old barn door, as their gazes meet, weathered flecks of gold and hazel swirling amidst the subtle blue glow of Justice. “I do not wish to argue with you,” Fenris says.

“Then don’t,” Anders murmurs, and the momentary spell is broken. He stands without another word and carries on ahead of them. 

Hawke gently assists Fenris in getting to his feet. “I dare say that was incredibly civil of the both of you,” he ribs. Silence hangs as they follow after Anders, slowed somewhat by Fenris’s limping gait. Hawke speaks again, softly now, “He’s not a bad man.”

“That does not make him a good one. At best, Hawke, he is deeply troubled.” Fenris pauses. “But… it would be unreasonable to say that means he is entirely deserving of the pain he has experienced.”

Fenris knows, were mistakes truly a measure of one’s worth, he himself would be paltry as shriveled weeds.

Hawke smiles, something proud, fond. “He’d likely appreciate hearing that.”

“I doubt we are at that point with each other. We leave more conversations in anger than not.”

“Small steps are still steps, Fenris,” Hawke is full-hearted, ever the optimist, “There may be hope for you both yet.”

As Fenris studies Anders’s silhouette, a sloping, shadowed form across the brilliance of the horizon, warm sunset glow painted along his cheekbones like spun gold, his chest fills with something he cannot put a name to. Wondering softly at what may yet lie ahead, what scars wait to speak, he can manage only a soft, “Perhaps.”

**Author's Note:**

> feedback is very much welcome!! i'm pretty new to the da2 world so i apologize if anybody seems ooc here. i'm on tumblr at  
> [deardamselfly](https://deardamselfly.tumblr.com/) if you ever wanna chat! sending lotsa love your way <33


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